G'day Grenadier,
not wnating to get into a my dog is blacker than your dog contest but, hopefully this adds more context to your understanding of the West coast of the South Island. I acknowledge that Alaska ain't that great BUT the West Coast of NZ is the 2ND WETTEST PLACE IN THE WORLD. We are talking three days of good weather for 4 to 5 bad ones and MASSIVE rainfall. Only areas of the Amazon rain forest are wetter, and no where near as cold!

Secondly if for example you fly with James Scott from his hanger S of Fox glacier you could be in the tops in literally fifteen minutes. If you started out at 8am thats a whole day you miss and when you have very small windows of opportunity its pretty important to get it right. The west coast also has massivve sea mists that roll in periodically so even on good days you can be fogged out. The way ground hunters work now is working, sometimes you may need to change spots during your time in the valleys so a minimum time prior to a flight may not work either. Minimum period before returning may work but the real problem is stopping people Heli-hunting altogether.

How we do this I'm not sure. I acknowledge that some people will do anything for an X inch trophy, for them there are Tahr behind wire, as sad as that is. We must combat heli-hunting as Tahr are to mountain hunters in the South what Stone Sheep and Mountain Goats are to you guys in North America, a sacred and hard won trophy. Can you imagine someone Heli-hunting a Stone Sheep, they'd be locked up wouldn't they?

We won the canned lion argument in SA as a group of ethical hunters we can win this too. Hell I don't even live in NZ but I love Tahr and the environment they live in more than I love Buffalo and Arhnemland.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant but I plan to hunt the West coast every year if I can for the rest of my life its that good, come and find out it will blow your mind.

Regards,

MOG,
heavily infatuated with the South Island of New Zealand